Why do maintenance improvement initiatives fail to deliver? (Hedgehog or Fox?)

Why do maintenance improvement initiatives fail to deliver? (Hedgehog or Fox?)

Christer Idhammar, Founder IDCON INC

It is not uncommon that many reliability and maintenance improvement initiatives fail to deliver expected results. Why is it so?

Some of the most common causes I have observed include:

• Lack of top management understanding, directive and long term support.
• Initiatives are shortsighted and too cost focused instead of long term and reliability focused.
• Politics and disjointed organizational goals and objectives.
• Mobility of management.
• Confusing the organization with new names on well known concepts.
• Failing to understand that the reliability and maintenance improvement initiative is a process without an end, not a program with an end.
• It is a process driven by disciplined thoughts and actions by people.
• Technology is secondary to behavior and will be very successfully applied when an organization is ready. 

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